The Berks Jazz Fest, which opens Friday April 5 for its 23rd year, has always been about entertainment.

But audiences this year also might may learn more than ever about the distinctly American musical genre from the nearly 140 performances in over the festival’s 10 days at major venues, clubs and restaurants throughout the Reading area.

Esperanza Spalding

Some of that education will come just from listening. The effects jazz has had on other styles will be evident in programs that offer jazz mixed with rock, funk, blues, Latin, pop and gospel. Salutes to artists such as Eric Clapton, Amy Winehouse and Steely Dan will further drive home that concept.

Festival headliner Esperanza Spalding, the only jazz artist to ever win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, is sure to will give listeners a schooling in the rising popularity of new adherence to traditional jazz when she plays at 7:30 p.m. April 9 at Reading’s Scottish Rite Cathedral. Indeed,The bassist/singer has been a music educator herself.

Dianne Reeves

If you want more formal education, there are workshops and master classes. New this year is Get jazzED, cq,an educational series that offers a mix of live performances, workshops and film for all ages at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in downtown Reading.

“We do a lot with education every year but we our education committee really put together a comprehensive program,” says festival General Manager John Ernesto.

Indeed The 2013 festival is part of the Smithsonian Institute’s National Jazz Appreciation Month celebration.

As always, the fest offers an impressive lineup that includes six 2013 Grammy nominees.nominees from the most recent Grammy Awards. In all, the fest will feature 44 headline concerts with tickets costing $15-$48, and nearly 100 free performances.

Organizers have even expanded the boundaries of the fest. Smooth jazz trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist Rick Braun, an Allentown native, played a preview of his fest appearances at Musikfest Cafe in Bethlehem on March 30 — his first public Lehigh Valley show ever.

Arturo Sandoval

Braun will play three shows at the fest — he’s part of Berks Bop III on April 10 and the All-Star Jazz Jam on April 11, both at Crowne Plaza Reading, and the Jazz Attack on April 12 at Scottish Rite Cathedral.

After the fest, blues-jam-rock group Tedeschi Trucks Band, featuring Allman Brothers guitarist Derek Trucks and his wife Susan Tedeschi, will play an April 28 show at Reading’s Sovereign Center under the umbrella of the festival. Ernesto says the fest couldn’t get an earlier date to have Tedeshi Trucks Band at the actual festival, but wanted to lend its name to the show nonetheless.

After a preview night Thursday, April 4 featuring concerts at Kutztown University and the Reading Public Museum, the fest officially opens Friday, April 5 with a concert by Dianne Reeves, the only singer to win the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for three consecutive albums (she’s won four Grammys overall), at 7:30 p.m. April 5 at Sovereign Performing Arts Center. The show also will mark the 100th anniversary season of Reading Symphony Orchestra, which will back Reeves.

Kirk Whalum

“I’m really excited about opening night,” Ernesto says. “I mean, There’s no one better than Dianne. Man, she’s an amazing jazz singer, and a singer, period — four-time Grammy winner.” Adding the Reading Symphony anniversary celebration will be a “great way to kick off the festival,” he says.

And bassist/singer The festival has tried to get Spalding to play in Reading is someone the fest has tried to get since attention on her exploded when she beat Justin Bieber for the Best New Artist Grammy, Ernesto says.

“We could never get her schedule to match up with the festival,” he says. But The festival is slightly later this year, pushing it into the path of the East Coast leg of Spalding’s tour.

Ernesto says because Easter is early this year, the fest “made the decision to go after Easter; not push the festival too far up into March.” That decision was serendipitous for the fest’s focus on education, Ernesto says. It put the entire festival in April, which happens to be the Smithsonian Institute’s National Jazz Appreciation Month. So the festival applied for and got the Smithsonian’s official designation.

“We wanted to really take advantage of that and be part of that whole program,” Ernesto says. “It’s kind of neat, and it’s really good because it ties in with a lot of the educational stuff that we do.”

Jonathan Butler

For the educational Get jazzED series, Ernesto says, the fest rented the 120-seat GoggleWorks Theatre for seven days. All the programs but one are free.

The series starts April 5 with a concert film “Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues,” followed by local blues band Lil’ Ragu and The Blues All-Stars. The Blues All Stars are part of the festival’s Berks Jazz Jam, where young musicians play with the pros.

On April 6, British guitar legend Martin Taylor will off the series’ only paid-attendance event, a workshop and concert, followed by free performances by the Berks High School All-Star Jazz Chorus and Jazz Band.

April 7 will feature the jazz film “For Love of Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story,” after which the Cuban trumpeter will play a paid concert across the street at the Miller Center for the Arts at Reading Community College. Before he does, Bethlehem’s Hector Rosado and Ensemble Siete will give a free concert giving musicians young and old an opportunity to play with them.

“Having Arturo Sandoval there is exciting,” Ernesto says. “We’ve also been trying to get Arturo for several years and we just couldn’t make it work, but this year it just all fell into place.”

And On April 8, the Get jazzED series will show the documentary “Girls in the Band,” after which the all-female quintet Monnette Sudler's Ladies Night Out will play.

Ana Popovic

Just because it has a bigger educational element doesn’t mean the fest won’t be full of great entertainment, Ernesto says.

Ernesto says the festival’s sheer breadth may be an education in itself. “We just try to make it diverse and appealing,” Ernesto says.

Smooth jazz pianist Keiko Matsui, a festival favorite, will perform opening night at 7:30 p.m.at Miller Center. Also that night will be a tribute to the music of the late soul and jazz singer Amy Winehouse by Reading native Jennifer Kinder and The Amy Flies in Paradise Band, at 9 p.m. in Abraham Lincoln Hotel Ballroom.

That will be the first of several mixed-genre tributes, including an Eric Clapton Retrospective featuring Craig Thatcher Band at 9 p.m. April 6 at Abraham Lincoln Hotel Ballroom and A Tribute to Steely Dan by The Royal Scam will be at 9 p.m. April 13 at Abraham Lincoln Hotel.

Jazz fusion group Steve Smith & Vital Information will celebrate its 30th anniversary with two sets sets at 7 and 10 p.m. April 12 at Gerald Veasley’s Jazz Base at Crowne Plaza Reading.

There will be a reunion by jazz-fusion group Brecker Brothers Band, which had successful albums from the 1970s through the 1990s and whose members played in Blood Sweat & Tears and Frank Zappa’s band, and played on Todd Rundgren’s hit “Hello It’s Me,” and songs by Parliament. That will be 7 and 10 p.m. April 13 in Gerald Veasley’s Jazz Base at Crowne Plaza Reading.

Other genre offerings will include Dave Samuels and the Caribbean Jazz Project with the Catonsville High Steel Drum Band at 7:30 p.m. April 12 in Abraham Lincoln Hotel Ballroom; contemporary jazz/R&B singer Will Downing playing “sophisticated soul” at 10 p.m. April 6 at Crowne Plaza Reading Ballroom; and Blues at the Inn by Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King plus the Chris Bergson Band at 7:30 p.m. Inn at Reading Ballroom.

Blues guitarist Ana Popovic with Steve Guyger & The Excellos will play at 7:30 p.m. April 13 at the Inn at Reading Ballroom, and a Jazzin’ Up the Pops concert by David Benoit, Brian Bromberg, Chuck Loeb, Eric Marienthal and the Reading Pops Orchestra will be 7:30 p.m April 13 at Miller Center for the Arts.

A New Faces of Jazz concert at 7:30 p.m. April 12 at the Miller Center will feature Cyrille Aimee, a French singer with roots in gypsy jazz, playing with the Surreal Band, and pianist Eldar Djangirov and his Trio.

Particularly exciting, Ernesto says, is the festival finale — a Gospel According to Jazz celebration, featuring Kirk Whalum, Jonathan Butler, Donnie McClurken, the DOXA Gospel Choir from St. James Church of God in Reading and possibly contemporary saxaphonist Jackiem Joyner.

Saxophonist Kirk Whalum and his band will play its own set at 2 p.m. April 13 at Crowne Plaza Reading Ballroom, and then the 7 p.m. April 14 gospel celebration at Scottish Rite Cathedral. Whalum has released three “Gospel According to Jazz” albums and won his first Grammy award in 2011 for Best Gospel Song for “It’s What I Do.”

R&B/fusion singer and guitarist Jonathan Butler, who plays a set at 10 a.m. April 13 at Crowne Plaza Reading Ballroom, also does a lot of gospel music, Ernesto says.

And The festival recently added singer and radio minister Donnie McClurken to the program. “Donnie is a major gospel star; he has a national syndicated program,” Ernesto says. “So we have this great lineup. There’s a real buzz about the finale. Ticket sales are going really well. People are excited about it.”

Contemporary jazz saxophonist Jackiem Joyner, who also plays gospel and has a gospel song on his latest album, may even join in, Ernesto says. “So it’s going to be an amazing show,” he says.

BERKS JAZZ FEST, April 5 through April 14, concert venues, restaurants, bars and churches in and around the Reading area. Most shows free. Headliners $15 to $68. Tickets are available at the door, at www.ticketmaster.com or 800-745-3000. Nearly 100 performances are free. Info: 800-653-8000, www.berksjazzfest.com.

WHO,S PLAYING AND WHERE AND ALSO THE TICKETS IAM A DISABLED VET LOVE JAZZ BUT WANT TO SEE AS MANY EVENTS THIS YEAR SO PLEASE IF YOU CAN HELP ME WITH THE PROGRAMS AND WHERE ,THANK YOU VERY MUCH ,TWENTZ1200@HOTMAIL.COM

Posted By: TOM WENTZ | Mar 31, 2013 3:08:37 PM

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JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.